Anyone who has ever
started a garden knows it can be a time consuming task. You have to work the
soil, till it, get it ready for planting. Then you have to sew your seeds into the
dirt, watering them frequently, but not too much or else you risk killing them.
As they grow you have to weed out the plants around them that suck the soil dry
of vital nutrients or use herbicides to help them grow solo in the soil. You
have to watch carefully for the signs of predation, know what kind of animal is
eating your plants, and devise a clever tactic for dealing with said critter.
In short, farming
is hard.
Even harder in fact
when you have an arid wasteland as your plot. When the Jewish people moved back
to the Promised Land they ran into some major problems. Turns out, planting
tomatoes in 120 degree sun during the day and the 30 degree glow of the moon at
night, just wasn’t cutting it. They needed better methods if they were going to
survive.
Through some joint
cooperation with the Chinese, a little Zionist elbow grease, and some brilliant
methods they pulled it off, with aplomb. While most of Israel still remains a
desert, they are finding ways to stave that effect off, slowing erosion, and
providing a tremendous boom to the agricultural economy of Israel, to the tune
of 10 billion dollars.
But with innovation
comes problems. Pesticide usage went up causing damage to the surrounding clean
water supplies. But unlike the United States, Israel isn’t going to just sweep
that fact under the rug, in fact, they’re making every effort they can to clean
it up and solve the problems.
Today at TI&IT
we’re going to show you how international cooperation should be done, talk
about a booming agricultural economy in what most would have wrote off as a
barren wasteland, and talk about Israel’s greener future while talking about
their past. We’re also going to discuss today, just how in the heck Israel was
able To Make a Desert Bloom.
Extreme Homeland
Makeover: Science Edition
To say the Jewish
people have had it rough over the centuries is like saying the cosmos is big.
It’s such a gross understatement its borderline offensive. From outright
slaughter and open persecution, to countries all over the world denying them
land to own and rights to work it, they’ve had many obstacles to overcome.
First the Romans
came in and kicked them around making the Jews a minority, leaving them with
only Galilee. Eventually most of them were forced to migrate as Christian
influence swept through the land. Then they’re home was torn apart by the wars
between Christianity and the Muslim faith for centuries until the Muslims
reoccupied the territory. That’s like someone breaking in and throwing a
massive party in your house while you’re on a several century long vacation.
For the sake of
time we’re going to flash forward a little bit and tell you about their time in
Europe. Guess what happened to them there? More persecution! In Western Europe,
followers of the Torah were able to earn citizenship and the rights that came
along with it, in Eastern Europe however, things weren’t so great. And then…
came… Hitler… We’ll stop there but I’m sure by now you get the idea.
But before Hitler began
his crazy parade, some people had the good sense to pack up and leave.
Throughout the 19th century, the areas that are known now as
Palestine and Israel have been seeing a large migration of Jews back to the
Holy Land. While this immigration has been met with mixed views ranging from
slurs to outright violence, these hardy people have found a way to make the
most from a mushy bushel of apples.
From 1882 to 1903,
Jews from Eastern Europe and Yemen made what was known as the First Aliyah. An
Aliyah is their journey from where they were to where they are now. A pilgrimage
if you will. (Consequently, it’s also the honor of being called to read from
the Torah.) But once they got there, even after their dire travels, they faced
a whole mess of other issues.
Everywhere the
Arabic countries would allow the Jews to purchase land weren’t exactly in ideal
locations. Some were mountainous areas with vast arid deserts. Others were
overworked plots where soil erosion and deforestation had devastated the
landscape. But perhaps the worst of all was the area known as the Hula Valley,
surrounded by miles of marshland. It wasn’t because it was difficult to work;
it was because it contained one of the most deadly viruses known to man.
Malaria.
Mosquitos
containing the Malaria virus were responsible for infecting over half of the
population. The surrounding marshes of the valley were prolific for their
habitation. So from rocky soil, to erosion, to pestilence and disease, the Jews
had every biblical hurdle to jump, and in my opinion, they did so with great
grace and determination.
When Life Gives You
Lemons…Plant ‘Em
So with everyone turning yellow and dying
there was only one thing to do.
Start digging.
And I’m not talking about graves.
They set to work clearing rocky fields,
building terraces, replanting trees to counteract soil erosion, drained the
breeding grounds for mosquitos and diverted the water through for irrigation,
and in a few decades, Israel began to become unrecognizable. And I mean that in
a good way.
Unfortunately though, while all these methods
were extremely effective they created a host of environmental issues. During
the agricultural boom insect predation became a serious issue. Harmful
pesticides were used to guard the crops against these disastrous bugs. What’s
worse is the rodents were eating all the crops as well. Poisons were dumped by
the teaspoonful down into their burrows.
The problem with this is that while the
poison was effective, it also contaminated the water supply. Israel receives on
average an inch or two of rain a year
so. They also share water supplies through aqueducts with the neighboring
countries. And in these arid environments irrigation is imperative to crop
survival. When the crops are watered though, the underground burrows of rodents
filled with poison flood upward, bringing the contaminated soil to the surface.
This run-off meets streams, lakes, and certain otherwise clean sources of water
making them undrinkable.
But instead of covering it up and trying to
fight chemicals with more, newer, and experimental chemicals, the Jewish people
had better ideas. Looking at the predicament the United States and other
nations’ environments were in, they decided to take a different approach. Which
led them right down a road to what they wanted all along. Self-sufficiency.
If
We Make A Mess, We Clean It Up
So as I mentioned above they drained the
areas around the marsh in order to end the mosquitos terrifying Malaria reign,
but like using pesticides, this created more environmental issues. Everything
in nature depends on something else in nature to provide it with something it needs
to survive. The mosquito is no exception. When the marshland was drained the
ecology went down the drain with it.
But where America would have just paved the
area over and said, “We meant to do that.” Israel said, “Whoops…” and set about
to fix it.
Areas of the Hula Valley were reflooded in an
attempt to bring the wildlife back. Luckily it worked for the most part. While
several species of fish went extinct in the process, it established a
conservation society much like our National Parks here in the U.S., and helped
create the beautiful Hula National Park that plays a huge host to bird
migration in the area today.
But if they couldn’t use pesticides anymore,
and they couldn’t risk altering the landscape at the expense of the indigenous
flora and fauna, what in the world were they going to do in order to continue
being reliant on their own agriculture?
Needless to say they solved this problem, as
agrarian imports only include things like meats, coffees, and oilseeds. From
fresh fruits to succulent vegetables, Israel exports more crops then it ships
in. The Middle East, China, and Europe all benefit from their incredible
ingenuity, we do as well. In fact, several of the crops we enjoy here in the
United States are directly resultant of their science program experimenting
with growing different varieties in hostile regions.
While potatoes that grow in the desert and
disease resistant cherry tomatoes developed in the 70s were absolutely awesome,
Israel felt like it could do better. They wanted to improve upon harmful
farming techniques so as to increase the quality of life for all of their
residents.
Several institutions including the Green
Kibbutz Movement and the Jewish National Fund set out to solve this problem.
And they found their answers in a humble little company called BioBee.
The
Amazing Organic BioBee!
So without chemicals, how are we going to
kill off predators? Biological Pest Control. What is biological pest control
you ask? Why, it’s nature of course! The ultimate form of pest control is
letting the planet do its thing; we’re the ones who messed it up in the first
place. Don’t believe me? Watch as Shimon Steinberg breaks it down in this
awesome TED talk for a better understanding.
As you can see from the video there are a
host of pests that can inhibit crop yield, but as you can also see, for every
pest there is a nightmare. For the aphids there is a parasitic wasp that lays
its babies and lowers the population. For the mites there is an equally
terrifying predator of them as well. But how do they weed out the rodent
population without introducing a potentially invasive species?
The barn owl of course! Two barn owls are
capable of killing up to five thousand mice in their territory span a year. As
you can imagine, that’s a beautiful thing for farmers. But there was a problem
with their initial introduction. The barn owls would fly off over the
Palestinian border and because in Palestinian beliefs the barn owl is seen as a
harbinger of death, they were shooting them.
Undeterred BioBee set out to educate farmers
and the Palestinian authority on the usefulness of owls over harmful chemicals.
After a tour and an extensive explanation, BioBee now has thousands of Owl
roosts all over the country and surrounding territories.
There was still one more pest to get rid of
though. While aphids, thrips, and mites primarily feed off of the ground crops,
there was one flying menace in the sky that could bring a Mango harvest to a
dead halt.
The fruit fly.
Instead of introducing a predator for the fly
though they did something better. A subsidiary of BioBee called Bio-Fly began
manufacturing sterile fruit flies in their laboratory. The technique is called
Sterile Insect Technique (SIT), and like many other awesome things you had no
idea how antiquated they were, this technique has been around for quite a
while.
Let’s go irradiate some bugs and break down
how SIT works.
Screwing
the Screw-fly
Investigation into the sterilization of
insects actually began in the 1930s. It originated with two men named Raymond
Bushland and Edward Knipling. They first developed the technique to eliminate
screwworms preying on warm-blooded animals, especially cattle herds. See in
their time the screwworm was a serious problem. It was capable of wiping out an
entire herd of cattle through infection, and during a time where people relied
almost solely on that income, it could be life-ending for a family.
While Bushland began looking into chemical
eradication, Knipling sought a different route. He hypothesized that if they
sterilized one generation of the insects, the population as a whole would
rapidly decline. His thought process was based on a couple of key factors.
First and foremost was the life cycle of the
screwworm, which after it developed into its fly stage was fairly short lived.
Secondly once the female mated that was it, she was done. The female only lays
one brood in their lifespan. So if this one brood could be interrupted by a
sterile generation, the screw-fly would cease to be a problem.
So now another problem arose. If they weren’t
going to use dangerous chemicals that could potentially harm the cattle, just
how were they going to sterilize an entire population, enough to overwhelm the
feral male population, of flies without killing them, and making sure they
weren’t too weak to fend off their wild counterparts in the quest for a mate?
The answer was found in radiation.
Due to World War II (remember…Hitler and all
that…) their work was postponed but after the war in the 1950s they began
working on it once more. In Florida in the mid-50s they released their first
group of sterilized insects into the wild. By the 1980s the screw-fly was no
longer a problem.
“So when you say radiation…?” Why, I’m
talking about with X-Rays of course! Just potent enough to kill the sperm but
not strong enough to kill them or disorient them to the point they cannot fend
for themselves. (Or to turn them into the incredible Screw-Hulk) It was fairly
genius if I do say so myself. But radiation isn’t exactly the most
cost-effective, or safest around. “So what now? No more radiation, no more
chemicals, you’re really cutting off our arms here bub.”
Well remember what BioBee was doing above by
introducing natural, non-invasive insect predators into the wild? Well it turns
out a Scientist named Wolbach discovered a bacteria capable of doing the same
thing. Big or small it seems, everything has an enemy.
To understand how the Wolbachia works we need
to understand the difference between parasitic and symbiotic relationships. To
do that, instead of getting all technical, I’m going to turn to the help of
fiction, Orson Scott Card’s Science Fiction novel “Speaker of the Dead” to be exact.
In the second book of the “Ender” series our protagonist travels to
a planet called Lusitania. While it’s
been colonized it doesn’t contain the same biodiversity our planet does.
Instead of thousands of species it has a few dozen, but all are reliant on one
another to exist and all are contingent on a virus known as “The Descolada.”
This virus is devastating to humans; it
attacks our reproductive organs first and eventually calcifies our entire
internal structure. But the local indigenous called “The Pequeninos” need it
in order to complete their life cycle. What kills us is beneficial to others.
To us, The Descolada is parasitic, but to the “Piggies” it is symbiotic.
That’s how Wolbachia works in the arthropod family
and in some species of insects. In 1924 Dr. S. Burt Wolbach discovered this
bacteria living in the reproductive chambers of certain species of mosquito. It
garnered little interest then but now it seems this bacterium may play a key
role in our parasite eugenics program. (Sounds like Orson Scott Card did some
research.)
In some species it’s vital for their
continued survival but in some species it can wreak havoc with the entire
structure of the population. It can cause male embryos to actually be born
sterile females, die entirely, or alter their genetics for reproductive
incompatibility. And these are just some examples of what it can do naturally.
The prospect of altering this bacterium is
tantalizing but like any time we meddle with the natural processes of things it
can reap unintended consequence. This remains in the experimental and testing
phases but nonetheless could be an extremely effective future alternative to
environmentally damaging pesticides.
So we’ve talked about some of the ways to
stave off predation. But what are some of the other problems? Well for one
there’s pollination. The desert doesn’t really offer a hospitable environment
to pollination friendly bees. So just how do they solve this problem?
With sheer brilliance.
Once Again,
Pollination FTW
Some plants require
the help of bees to pollinate. Some plants like tomatoes can be shaken in order
to initiate pollination but this method is less effective. Bees don’t survive
well in the arid climate of the desert. Flowers are few and far between, so
honeybees don’t make much sense, but there is another helpful pollinator that
doesn’t have to make a nest.
Bumblebees.
Using specially
designed containers BioBee ships Bumblebees all over the world to aid countries
in pollination. In Israel they use them in their greenhouses. The unit is
essentially a sealed environment in which the bees can thrive. With some
attentiveness from the farmer the bees can be released and sealed back inside
with very little effort after each pollination cycle. This has increased
productivity and yields tenfold in these arid regions and continues to be one
of the biggest contributors to their agrarian boom.
To learn more about
how these unique hives work you can click here
and check out the BioBee website.
With the continued
support of other nations Israel is also looking into technology to control root
temperatures that won’t harm the environment. Better irrigation techniques are
on the rise, and the lush green spreading across the country isn’t showing
signs of slowing down.
And what’s amazing
is they openly wish to share all of this with the world, so long as the world
is willing to listen. And over two dozen countries were more than happy to lend
an ear. Slowly but surely, Israel is changing the scientific, technological,
and conservation landscape. I look forward to reporting more on this in the
future.
Thanks for reading!
-Ryan Sanders
Thanks
for reading everyone! To learn more about any of the topics, from The First
Aliyah to BioBees plans for the future of agriculture and pesticide abolition
feel free to follow any of the links below. Feel free to share this on Facebook
and thank you all so very much for your continued support!!!! These are
incredibly fun to write and I hope you all enjoy these as much as I do. Happy
Learning all!!!!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment